Anything and Everything that is cool, hot, fresh and classic.
Apparently I’m a little late to the party on this one, but The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture is a fantastic photo blog that uses huge and beautiful pictures to tell stories that normally only get a thousand words inside of the newspaper.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check it out.
When you think of rally racing and rally cars, you probably don’t think of Ferrari’s prancing horse, but Makela Auto Tuning sure does, since they were the creators of this fantastic 1977 Ferrari 308 GTB FIA Group 4 rally car.
The process involved stripping the entire car down to its bare frame and then building it from the ground up using all new parts, and the end result speaks for itself.
Be sure to check out their site for more than 250 pictures that document the entire process and every step along the way.
[Makela Auto Tuning - 1977 Ferrari 308 GTB FIA Group 4 Rally Car]
[Via: Jalopnik]
Jay from The Plug created an interesting project called Stranger Photos Have Happened where he tied a disposable camera to a bench with a sign reading:
I attached this camera to the bench so you could take pictures. Seriously. So have fun. I’ll be back later this evening to pick it up.
Love,
Jay / The Plug
Later that day, he did in fact go pick the camera up, and after developing the film, he posted the pics to his site for the world to see.
[The Plug - Stranger Photos Have Happened]
[Via: Grow A Brain]
If you’re a fan of “one gear, fixed wheel, low-maintenance, highly-dependable bikes”, then COG is for you.
“COG is a visual journal captured from behind the bars of city bikers and messengers around the world”.
It’s filled with beautiful pictures, great reviews, and from the front lines stories, so if the fixed gear bike is your thing, then COG just might be your new best friend.
[Via: NOTCOT]
Thankfully these pictures speak for themselves, because the details of this concoction of a car are scarce.
From what I can gather, it was made by Dilip Chhabria Design, and is, unfortunately, a genuine Rolls Royce underneath, though it now looks more like a modified Nissan 350Z with a body kit than anything else.
Features include the Rolls Royce grill, Lamborghini doors, a completely custom rear, and a bright red interior.
I guess they gave up on subtle!
TwitterPoster is a collection of Twitter profile pictures that have been sized according to their degree of influence on Twitter.
Though there are only three sizes, so it’s not a direct and exact representation, TwitterPoster does take into account the number of subscribers, as well as the number of tweets that each person makes, so it’s a good way to see who is utilizing the technology, and who is not.
Plus, there are different country specific posters, so you can see who’s big in Deutschland.
Did you make the cut?
[Via: Rooster's Rail]
Today, the ‘book and the ‘soft joined forces, and Microsoft gave Facebook $240 million at a valuation of $15 billion for an expansion of their advertising partnership.
$15 billion?
A site that lets people poke each other and share pictures is worth $15 billion?
Yes; and here’s why: Facebook prints money.
Facebook has created a product that turns a 99.99% profit, has incredibly (almost infinitely) high demand, and costs nothing to make.
What is this mystery product?
Facebook Gifts.
What are Facebook Gifts?
“Facebook Gifts allows you to send personalized messages with icons to your friends on Facebook.”
Basically a .gif with a message, these “Gifts” are a perfect example of why Facebook is worth $15 billion (and probably even more).
Take, for example, today’s Gift: A Unicorn.
I’m going to go ahead and assume that with a few MS Paint skills and a spare hour, I could crank out the unicorn image that they’re using.
And if I were Facebook, and I did go ahead and create this unicorn Gift; how much would I expect to get paid for my hour of work?
$10 million.
That’s right, Facebook will eventually make $10 million from this crappy unicorn .gif.
Not bad for an hour’s work.
Why?
I have no idea.
To clarify: I do know why they’ll make $10 million: Because people will eventually buy 10,000,000 of these crappy unicorns. What I don’t know is why people will eventually buy 10,000,000 of these crappy unicorns. I mean, it is a crappy unicorn after all.
I think part of the reason why Facebook can sell so many of these things is that they have hit upon the perfect price point. Users don’t see $1 as being a lot of money, so they’ll gladly skip their next iTunes download to let their friend know that they care.
If Gifts were free, no one would want one. You’d give them to your friends, and they’d simply add them to the pile of other free gifts. Put a $1 price tag on the Gift however, and suddenly, giving a gift is a momentous occasion. You’re spending your hard earned cash, and sending your friend something of value.
And hey, it’s not like everyone else is going to get the same one, right? Aren’t they at least part of a limited edition?
Yes; if you consider 10,000,000 to be a limited edition.
That’s right, 9.999,999 other people are going to get that very same ‘limited edition’ unicorn, and Facebook is going to get 10,000,000 one dollar bills added to their bank account.
Amazing.
Like I said, they print money.
And despite my despising of the Facebook Gift idea, I will say this: I’ll gladly plop down a hard earned Washington for one of these the day Facebook comes out with a Gift in the shape of a T-Shirt that says: “My friend just spent $1, and all I got was this lousy Gift”.
Hey, a guy can dream…
[Facebook]
Flickr has built up a community around sharing pictures, and users interact by annotating images with their comments.
Apparently, this ability to add your own ideas, coupled with the fact that Flickr has been around long enough to develop its own –isms means that for one lucky Pillar pic, every minute detail is now a point of focus to be picked and pulled apart.
Click through for a crash course in Flickr inside jokes.
When Facebook first arrived, it was great. You used it to talk with your friends, you used it to poke someone if you wanted to say hi but didn’t want to say much else, and you used it to join groups of people with similar interests.
Then, pictures came along, and suddenly, you could even see what your friends were doing.
Everything was great. You could keep in touch with your friends (even the ones half way across the country), there weren’t a lot of ads, and it wasn’t MySpace.
Then, things started to fall apart.
Facebook opened up its API, and in my opinion, the entire site went down the drain (and quickly).
It became a collection of random widgets and wingdings, and I now no longer want to go to the site. I don’t care if a “zombie” friend just bit me; I don’t care what you posted on your friend’s Graffiti wall (that looks like it was made with MS Paint); and I certainly don’t want you to buy me a fake drink.
I just want to see what you did, what you’re doing, and what you’re going to do. Sadly, each day it’s getting harder and harder to do so.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand the Mr. Zuckerberg is trying to value his company at $15 Billion (That’s right, billion with a B.), and to do so he’s got to show that it can make money; but I think that at some point along its growth curve, Facebook forgot what made people switch: It wasn’t MySpace.
MySpace was messy and noisy and dirty. Facebook was clean and quiet and simple. You signed on, you sent a few messages, and you were done.
Sadly, applications have ruined all that, and unless Facebook can find a way of monetizing without clutterizing, I think it’s going to be tough times for the Wonder Company. (Though I still think that in the end, Mark is going to make off like a bandit regardless of what happens to the site. Hellooooo billionaire status.)
Thankfully, at least a few people agree. Read/Write Web recently wrote a post titled “Facebook: What If More Is Less?”, and in the post, they spend a majority of the time going over many of the same problems that I have just described.
In essence, Facebook has turned into a love it or hate it site, and the haters are gaining ground.
So what do you think? Has Facebook lost what made it so special, or have I just lost my argument? Let me know below.
[Read/Write Web - Facebook: What If Less Is More?]
[Facebook]
[MySpace]
…It’s Things Thursday: Fuck This Book?
Fuck This Book is a collection of unaltered and untasteful images of “real public signs that have been mischievously altered by stickers bearing the most expressive of all four-letter words”.
What’s the message?
Thankfully, nothing: “This is not social commentary. There is no message. It’s not meant to offend, exploit, or embarrass anyone.”
Instead, it’s just meant to be a juvenile, profane, and timeless look at our lives in a world that has been persuasively transformed.
[Fuck This Website]
[Via: Uncrate]